The Three Trials of Foundation Establishment

Liang Zhaohuang was still in seclusion inside Five Talisman Hall in Ludong County. This time, he devoted himself wholly to cultivation, basically ignoring the hall's business and no longer going around hunting for bargains.

Inside Ludong County, the spiritual energy was rich and gentle, and Qi Refining cultivation progressed extremely quickly. Liang Zhaohuang could clearly feel that the Five Qi Lotus Scripture's effect in refining spiritual energy and cultivating was quite a bit better than the Five Spirits Art.

Although the spiritual energy he needed to refine had more than doubled, the speed at which his cultivation grew had not slowed.

In two years, Liang Zhaohuang's cultivation smoothly broke through to the ninth level of Qi Refining, and he could begin preparing for Foundation Establishment.

It could be said that his cultivation had gone very smoothly.

Unfortunately, the cultivation of the other members of the Liang Family had not gone smoothly. Over the past two years, of the family juniors the patriarch had arranged to cultivate the Five Qi Lotus Scripture, not a single one had successfully established their foundation.

One had to know that, back then, in order to keep the secret, Patriarch Liang Xuelin had chosen to teach the Five Qi Lotus Scripture only to the family's Foundation Establishment "seeds." Their cultivation was basically all at the eighth or ninth level of Qi Refining, and after switching cultivation methods, they should have been able to attempt Foundation Establishment very soon.

But even so, after two years, not one of these Foundation Establishment "seeds" in the family had been able to successfully establish their foundation.

Patriarch Liang Xuelin and his eldest brother, Liang Zhaojun, had now begun shifting their focus from Foundation Establishment to managing the family's escape route.

They no longer expected that anyone would be able to complete Foundation Establishment in the remaining half a year.

It was better to do their utmost to arrange a way out for the family. As long as there were people and an inheritance, there would still be hope.

However, although no one had successfully established their foundation over the past two years, the people of the family had basically figured out the conditions for Foundation Establishment.

Generally speaking, to establish a foundation, three conditions had to be met.

First was a cultivation inheritance capable of Foundation Establishment. On this point, the Liang Family had newly obtained the Five Qi Lotus Scripture, and after switching to it, they had already met the requirement.

Second was a large amount of spiritual energy, to be refined into sufficient magic power when the cultivator established their foundation and complete the qualitative transformation of that magic power.

This point could be fulfilled with pills. The most commonly used was the Foundation Establishment Pill, and the Liang Family had also secretly collected a few over the years, more than enough for the family juniors to use.

Moreover, people like Patriarch Liang Xuelin and Fifth Uncle Liang Xuegui were cultivators who had accumulated strength at the ninth level of Qi Refining for decades. The magic power they had built up was already sufficiently abundant in itself; they did not even need the assistance of Foundation Establishment Pills to support the qualitative transformation of magic power during Foundation Establishment.

It could be said that these two points were not a problem for the Foundation Establishment "seeds" arranged by the Liang Family.

What truly stumped them, leaving them unable to produce a single Foundation Establishment cultivator after two years, was the third condition.

The opening of the sea of consciousness!

The two main signs of the Foundation Establishment Realm were, first, the qualitative transformation of the magic power in the dantian, turning from gas into liquid, which required the support of a vast amount of magic power; and second, the opening of the sea of consciousness and the birth of spiritual sense.

The Five Spirits Art the Liang Family had cultivated before contained absolutely no cultivation related to the sea of consciousness or the mind. Each of their Foundation Establishment "seeds" had spiritual power far too insufficient to open a sea of consciousness.

The Five Qi Lotus Scripture did contain cultivation related to the mind. It was a visualization method, visualizing a kind of Five-Colored Lotus Flower.

However, on the "gold foil" that Liang Zhaohuang and the others had obtained, there was no visualization diagram of the Five-Colored Lotus Flower.

On the "gold foil," there was only a single sentence: Observe the lotus in the pond!

Only then did the Liang Family learn that the withered lotuses in the Lotus Pond were actually meant for people to observe and use to visualize the Five-Colored Lotus Flower.

Since they could be used for visualization cultivation, the withered lotuses in the Lotus Pond were surely no ordinary objects, just as one would expect.

It was just that the senior who had left behind the inheritance probably had not expected that several thousand years would pass before someone opened the Cave Mansion and obtained his inheritance.

As a result, changes had occurred inside the Cave Mansion. The lotus flowers in the Lotus Pond that could be used for visualization cultivation had all turned into withered lotuses, making visualization cultivation completely impossible.

After discovering this, Patriarch Liang Xuelin and his eldest brother Liang Zhaojun came to Liang Zhaohuang, wanting to study the Lotus Pond and see whether there was any possibility of restoring that whole pond of withered lotuses.

In the end, they really did find a method to restore the Lotus Pond and the withered lotuses: it required a large amount of spiritual energy to nourish them.

The reason the spiritual-root lotus flowers in the Lotus Pond had all become withered lotuses was that they lacked the nourishment of spiritual energy. As long as the supply of spiritual energy was restored, the lotus flowers in the pond would naturally slowly recover.

At that time, when the lotuses in the pond bloomed, the family juniors could observe the lotuses to cultivate, nurture enough spiritual power, and naturally open their seas of consciousness, satisfying the conditions for Foundation Establishment.

There were two paths, fast and slow, to restoring the Lotus Pond's supply of spiritual energy.

The slow path was to find a spiritual vein and place the Lotus Pond atop it. The Lotus Pond would slowly absorb the spiritual energy of the vein and naturally recover bit by bit, and the withered lotuses in the pond would be able to bloom again.

Only, leaving aside the fact that the Liang Family had no spiritual vein, the only spiritual vein in Ludong County lay beneath Ludong County itself and was controlled by several county magnate families. There was simply no room for a small humble family like the Liang Family to get involved.

Even if they had a spiritual vein, the speed at which the Lotus Pond absorbed the vein's spiritual energy and recovered would be far too slow, and it could not resolve the Liang Family's crisis half a year later at all.

As for the fast path, that was to provide a large number of spirit stones for the Lotus Pond to recover.

The number of spirit stones required would be enormous. With the Liang Family's assets, they simply could not provide them.

Therefore, whether fast or slow, neither path was one the Liang Family could take for the time being.

The patriarch, Liang Zhaojun, and the others had already given up and begun to put all their effort into transferring the family's assets and arranging retreat paths for their disciples, hoping to avoid the disaster of having their clan wiped out half a year later, then slowly seek the family's development and advancement afterward.

But Liang Zhaohuang had not given up.

He felt there was still hope. He was confident he could complete Foundation Establishment within half a year.

His greatest reliance was the Peacock King Mantra he had cultivated all along.

This was likewise a cultivation of spiritual power, only it cultivated spiritual power into Five-Colored Buddha Light. Even so, it still met the conditions for opening the sea of consciousness and generating spiritual sense.

It could be said that the greatest barrier standing before the Liang Family's many Foundation Establishment "seeds" did not exist for Liang Zhaohuang.

Therefore, for Liang Zhaohuang, among the three barriers of Foundation Establishment, the most important instead was accumulating sufficient magic power.

And this was something that could be satisfied through external objects.

In the secret chamber of the rear hall of Five Talisman Hall in Ludong County, Liang Zhaohuang reached into his sleeve and took out a jade bottle. Opening it, he poured out five lotus seeds.

The five lotus seeds radiated five-colored halos. Through Liang Zhaohuang's Five Elements Dharma Eye, he could see that each lotus seed contained a great amount of Five Elements spiritual power.

They had been discovered in the Withered Lotus while he was studying the Lotus Pond. Liang Zhaohuang had seen at the time that these Five-Colored Lotus Seeds were treasures even better than Foundation Establishment Pills for increasing magic power and aiding Foundation Establishment.

So he had taken several lotus seeds with him, precisely for use during his Foundation Establishment now.

For this Foundation Establishment, Liang Zhaohuang had long since made preparations. Not only had he instructed the Liang Ruifang sisters, who were guarding the Five Talisman Hall, to close the rear hall and prevent outsiders from disturbing him, he had even set up a formation he had picked up as a bargain outside the secret chamber where he cultivated in seclusion.

Only after ensuring that everything was without error did Liang Zhaohuang pick up a Five-Colored Lotus Seed and swallow it, beginning his assault on the Foundation Establishment realm.

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